Tetra Pak recycling: what the industry does not tell you

Every week, millions of people throw a used carton into the recycling bin, convinced it will become another package. For years we have been taught this small ritual is part of the solution. Partly, it is. But a key question rarely appears in advertising: what really happens when that Tetra Pak reaches the sorting plant?

## The six-layer problem

Although perceived as "cardboard", a Tetra Pak is actually a multi-material package made of six microscopic layers: 75% cardboard, 20% polyethylene, 5% aluminium. These layers are thermally fused and cannot be easily separated.

The cardboard fraction can be recovered in water baths. The remaining mixture of plastic and aluminium — known as PolyAl — requires industrial pyrolysis at 500°C. Spain once had the world's only large-scale plant capable of doing this (Stora Enso, Barcelona), but it closed because it was not economically viable. Today, no plant in Spain can fully recycle PolyAl.

## The real numbers

Industry figures from ACE and Ecoembes suggest recycling rates near 78.8% in Spain. But independent consultant Eunomia Research & Consulting (commissioned by Zero Waste Europe, 2020) measured how much material actually returns to the productive cycle: 21.4%, dropping to 17.3% after processing losses.

Even Tetra Pak's own 2024 Sustainability Report acknowledges a global recycling rate of just 28%.

## Our choice

Our PET packaging uses a single material (♻1 PETE) that any sorting plant in Spain or Europe can process. No aluminium laminate. No complex delamination. The BiB 5L format separates cleanly: cardboard box in the blue bin, flexible bag in the yellow bin.

No packaging is perfect. But some materials have far better chances of truly completing the recycling cycle.